I can’t stand Joe Lieberman. But the nauseating arrogance and self-righteousness of the liberal “blogosphere” has caused me to start rooting for him to win. And that really annoys me.

Frustrated Dem: That's the stupidest logic I've ever heard.

Uh... what's arrogant about challenging someone in a primary election? Isn't that... democracy? Isn't reacting to a primary challenge like it's some sort of affront to all these decent arrogant as all hell?

I'm rooting for Lamont. I sent him a check—and he didn't return it, the mensch.

if you want to help lamont with your time and talent, go here:

http://political.moveon.org/phone/volunteer/ct.html?id=8341-5707151-Kc3TGPrO6DLnEof7Ipj3VQ&t=2

MoveOn is organizing a nation-wide phone banking operation this week to turn out *likely* Lamont supporters to the polls. It takes a phone, 30 minutes, and the internet. Pretty easy. I used to be a volunteer coordinator for MoveOn and I have to say this is one of the best things people can do to help. Really.

I have no problem with Lamont. It's the folks at Kos who drive me crazy. They seem to think that by sitting behind their computers and pontificating about the state of the Dem party, that they're the driving force behind electing Dems like Tester or Obama. And having walked more pecincts and made more phone calls over the years than I can remember, it annoys me to watch so many of these folks claim resposibility for affecting the outcome of an election.

I learned about Tester from Kos—as a lot of people have. How is that not valuable? And Kos certainly doesn't discount the value of GOTV efforts. He trumpets them, and trumpets the folks who do them.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can't we view what Kos is doing as important and that walking precincts is important?

And, I'm sorry, but having and sharing and popularizing your opinions—in the hopes of changing things—is pretty much what politics is all about, no?

Right now Atrios is yelling at people to do GOTV work for Lamont...

Just look at Lieberman's record. The man has been a walking, talking, pontificating anti-jackass, pandering to the Right since he took office. Hello, lily-Lieby, you were an elected Democrat. WHY can't we have a 3 party system? Maybe even multi party? Really. I'd settle for 2 at this point. Send Lamont more money - he'll need it.

What's happening to Lieberman is tragic. He's a good Democrat, far more so than one-note Lamont. But he's digging his own grave here, and I don't think there's any way out of it for him.

Lamont is the worst kind of idea-free talking point regurgitator imaginable, a man who has never had a thought wave in his life. Yes, he's against the war. Great. Now what? Got any plans? He MIGHT turn out to be a decent senator, in a couple of decades. Oh well. Even in CT, Lamont for Senate is an opportunity for Republicans.

If this is supposed to be an example of the kind of politics that Kos and his minions are bringing us, no thanks. Unfortunately, Kos is going to be hard to dislodge, since the proof of his lunacy won't be visible unless and until some hand-picked candidate of his gets creamed -- not just beaten, but beaten 80 to 20 or so. That's not going to be Lamont, so we'll have to put up with this for a few more years.

Oh no! FNARF, we disagree again! After our recent love fest about Danish modern architecture, even. (You aren't Gomez in disguise are you?)

Guys and guyettes: if you don't like Kos, dont read it. I enjoy the site because there is so much straight campaign type political stuff, rather than the philosophy and hand wringing of my favorite news and discussion sources.

Kos didn't pick Lamont for God's sake. Lamont's a home grown Democratic product in Connecticut who had enough money that he could afford to throw his name in the hat without bankrupting himself and enough experience and savy that he wouldn't be humiliated in front of television cameras. Looks like a good likely moderate liberal senator, but with less kiss ass - a rational fit for Conn. dems and moderate indepentdents. Not as left as I would like, but got to be a little pragmatic.

Doesn't suprise me there was a giant gusher of a well of pent up disgust with Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, just as there was around the country. Joe went out of his way to make sure that when he was stabbing fellow Dems in the back everyone in the whole nation saw AND heard about it. And he was too arrogant to do a couple of mea culpas before cruising to victory.

I dont have any money but I will be doing the 30 minutes (or more) of phone banking for Lamont, sponsored by Move-On, calling Dems and likely Lamont voters.

I'm now not worried about an independent run by Joe causing national disarray in the fall campaign. His campaign has been so awful and distasteful that if he loses, I just cant see him being able to build a viable campaign machine. At this point he reeks of loserville. Can't see him surviving an actual loss.

P.S.
FNARF: dont be too sad if Lamont wins. He says he's against the Iraq war, but he's probably ready to go all the way for the US/Israel til-death-do-us-part marriage.

This take on Lamont and where the Dems are going by Billmon is probably pretty perceptive, but hellishly depressing.

http://billmon.org/archives/002627.html

Lieberman has more in common with Bush on the major issues right now. What's happening to him is not tragic. We need Democrats who actually differ from and are willing to challenge the President - but if not actually challenge him, then at least vote with the rest of democrats who do challenge him. Is that too much to ask from an elected Dem? I'll answer my own question: no. Lieberman should have seen this coming and should have represented the views of his constituents instead of enjoying the high-life with the President. Good riddance.

He says he's against the Iraq war, but he's probably ready to go all the way for the US/Israel til-death-do-us-part marriage.

Lamont did say he's committed to Israel's security on Colbert, however, he followed that up by pointing out that the Iraq war has jeopardized Israel's security. That's the sort of thinking we need in Washington.

Just because you believe Israel has a right to exist doesn't mean you've drunk the koolaid and want to conquer the Middle East.

Lieberman has effectively accused people, who criticized Bush's handling of the war, of treason. At that point, he lost the right to call himself a Democrat, let alone a decent human being.

Read my post again. The person to blame for Lieberman's fall is Lieberman. That's why the story is a tragedy.

There's more to life than THE WAR, which is just one reason why the Kos-sacks are so annoying; they don't think so. But remember that when Lieberman goes down, he takes a huge swathe of the Democratic voters with him. From a national perspective, the loss of Lieberman's voice is bad for the Democrats if they want to win any of those borderliner Bush voters back.

Alexia:
There is a distinction between having a friendly policy recognizing Israel's right to exist and encouraging the worst elements of Israel's government to bomb the suburbs of Beirut and bomb fleeing refugees on the roads left after Israel bombed them too.

I have in the past been confused by the careful separation in the media of discussion about the situation in Iraq and the discussion about relations between Israel and its captives and neighbors. A policy of withdrawl from Iraq will have several important problems, one of which is that a Shia dominated goverment (after the civil war?) friendly to Iran may allow smoother land or air routes for moving materials from Iran to Syria and Hezbollah. Having incited the hatred of the vast majority of Lebanese through the viciousness of their response to a fairly minor clash with Hezbollah on the border, Israel has probably also mortally weakened the secular (non-religious) parties of Lebanon for decades to come. Given that Israel now requires full abasement at their feet of all Lebonese peoples before they will stop pummelling the country, and that the Lebonese now are not likely to do that, there is going to be immense pressure to attack Iran even if the US leaves Iraq because they will be the likely source of supply to those fighting Israels attacks on Lebanon and occupation of Lebanon.

Put more simply, given the massive destruction of Israels campaign against Lebanon, even now it is probably too late to prevent more widespread conflict. The United States will be blamed by Islamic countries and the rest of the world for encouraging and directly supporting this campaign. Furthermore, I very sadly have to agree that the Democratic's party's UNQUESTIONING support for any Israeli acts likely will make US policy a captive to their logical outcomes, including an attack on Iran, no matter which party is in control of Washington.

I'm going to make calls for Lamont still, but when it comes to the Middle East I suspect I'm deluding myself when I think he will be better than Lieberman in the end, but at least Lamont won't be going out of his way talking about how bad Democrats are.

Oops. P.S. Sorry to be so wordy here. But with Iraq about to crash on the rocks no matter what anyone does, Americans are going to want someone to blame besides themselves as they retreat in disaray. Iran is going to look terribly tempting, just for a tiny tiny bit of "face-saving" precision bombing, I can stop anytime I want, really. Lieberman or no Lieberman isn't going to effect this.

Mirror - there is so much speculation in your argument - perhaps diplomacy still has a chance. It is still viable and useful at this point to be both anti-Iraq war and pro-Israel's right to exist. Yes, all the things you say are possible, but they are not certain enough to say that in order to call yourself pro-Israel's-right-to-exist, you must also be pro-war-in-the-Middle-East.

Fnarf - Screw Lieberman. Sorry. No respect for the man. He should not call himself a Democrat. If Lamont wins the general election in Connecticut, then your theory that we lose voters is wrong. It is not a net loss. We are gaining voters on our side because this administration is incompetent. We don't need to worry about voters who voted for Lieberman 6 years ago because he seemed almost-Republican enough. Lieberman is taking up space a Democrat while siding with GW too often, and is therefore detrimental to progress at this point.

If everyone who reads this sent Lieberman a postcard and hand wrote that they want him to gracefully accept the results of the primary and retire, it might make a difference, especially if they used cool postcards.

Better than just blogging about it.

I don't know, Will - I think that might only have an impact if we all lived in Connecticut. And if he runs as an independent, he'll probably still lose. So, regardless of how graceful he is about it, it looks like his Senate career is coming to an end. On to the lecture circuit!

Audrey:
You are making the argument I countered in my first sentence in #15. To be agaisnt the Israeli destruction of the entire economy of Lebanon does not mean one is against the right of Israel to exist. This equating of the two is a red herring put up by supporters of Israel when it is doing some really immoral stuff. (With the underlying premise being that ANY act is morally defensible if it is defined a being part of an existantial policy)

There are many ways for Israel to pursue coexistance with its neighbors. But as Jimmy Carter said recently, "A major impediment to progress is Washington's strange policy that dialogue on controversial issues will be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior..."
http://bcdems.net/node/731

Israel's original support in building up Hamas to counter Fatah and their just completed destruction of Lebanon are examples of a policy approach that shows fear of the existance of stable equal negotiating partners. Just because one dominant faction of the Israeli political class prefers to be surrounded by societies in a state of chaos and economic depression doesn't mean that the US has to support this as the only viable approach.

As much as I wish it were possible, I don't see that Dems like Lamont are going change their attitude of uncritical support of Israel any more than you seem likely to.

[I don't know how much the religious belief or ideology of being the chosen people affects Israeli policy towards its neighbors, but they act as if it does and certainly American support for Israel over the years has had a component of racial bias. I know my unthinking support for Israel when I was younger included such a bias. Even now, when I am so critical of Israel's militarism, when I look at photos of Israelis and Arabs, I am drawn emotionally to the Israelis because they look more like me and the women dress more like free women here.]

Mirror: I guess I thought your earlier post was all doom and gloom, so I was responding to that. Not that it used to be totally rosy or anything, but relative to GW now, GWB the first gave Israel conditional/critical support, as did Clinton. I still think diplomacy has a chance in the future, if we get rid of some of these neo-cons at the top of the food chain. And Lamont is better than Lieberman in this area as well in that he sees the flaws in the Iraq war and thus the need to end it. He himself really has nothing to do with anything beyond that. I think there is definitely some racism in the viewing of Arabs that kill civilians as terrorists, when the US and Israel kill civilians and rob their economies, which ends up killing more civlians. Currently, what matters to me is that if there is any chance that Bush will be held accountable for this mess, I'd like to go for it. Dems like Lamont will definitely vote for hearings that ask Bush the tough questions directly and then investigate issues like whether the WMD-thing was a lie. Which I think it was. Republican majority in congress was the only way Clinton got impeached. And Democratic majority in congress is the only way anything of that sort will happen to that a-hole GW. And then that will be a great message to the world: The American people reject our neo-con prez. Okay, now I'm speculating....

Audrey:
Now you've got me feeling all hopeful again and that will make calling for Lamont more pleasant. I plan to make calls for at least a half hour on Sunday (see post #4 above for a Move-On link).

I hope that the American people can do more than just reject the neo-con prez. I hope they reject the policies too. Certainly if Lamont loses at this point, it will hurt the fight against the neocons because he has gotten so close and the race as taken on such symbolic significance nationally.

On the race issue: it's not just the imbalanced view of which killers shall be labeled terroists that gets to me, but the discounting of the lives of all Arabs, including children and elderly, as if they are from another species. (Ugh, just now heard on the MSM radio that Israeli strikes just took out a huge group of farm workers and have buried over 50 people in the rubble of a building in another strike.)
[Aside: I still cant figure out this "he's a good man" line on Lieberman. Openly undercutting one's own allies to cosy up to the opposition is the height of sleaze and the sign of a true coward. He's been a pro at it.]

P.S. Audrey:
Feeding off your hopefullness and optimism: Here's the kind of diplomatic "trading deadline" work that could help if the adminstration wasn't so single-minded in where they want to go.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_08/009286.php

Dan lots of your fans love the politician name denfinitions you do. Santorum was a good start. Let's all do what we can to get new definitions out there -

Lieberman - noun - A clot of blood than forms on an infant's penis if the Rabbi doesn't suck the blood away quick enough. -- The Rabbi used his tongue to dislodge the Lieberman that had formed on the penis. (There are three stages required for the performance of a ritually correct circumcision in Jewish law: the removal of the foreskin; the tearing of the underlying membraene so as to expose the glans completely; and the sucking away of the blood, m'tsitsah)see- http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/mohel.htm

This evil Lieberman Bush clone that you all hate so much doesn't exist. He's got a long record in the Senate, and does not resemble a Republican one in the slightest. He's to the left of quite a few Democratic senators -- he's to the left of Harry Reid, fer cryin' out loud.

This "I have no respect for the man" bullshit is Kossackism at its worst. It has nothing to do with reality and it has nothing to do with Lieberman's politics. It has to do with "you cross me ONE TIME and you're dead to me, motherfucker" Sopranos-style politics.

Lieberman is to blame for not understanding what he's up against, but it's still a tragedy, and it's bad for Democrats nationally. It's nothing to do with the people who voted for him in the last primaries. It's to do with the people who are in the middle and are looking for SOME kind of evidence that Democrats are capable of talking intelligibily about morality. If the Dems can't find that voice to replace Lieberman, they are utterly doomed no matter how incompetent the current administration is or appears to be to the swing voter.

Your extreme contempt is more damaging to the Dems' prospects than anything Lieberman could say.

FNARF:
Lieberman's morality is a joke. He had more criticism about Monica Lewinsky than he did about Abu Gharib. His insincere headline grabbing "morality" turned off more voters than it swayed in 2000 and it hasn't helped anyone in the Democratic party since, including Joe Lieberman.

Parent: "Television is so awful and immoral these days. Its terrible for our kids' moral sense and upringing. We really have to get more control of content. Everytime I go by the TV room when my kids are watching it just seems worse and worse..."

Some people in Connecticut decided to stop being victim whiners and do something. Like change the frickin' channel already or turn off the box altogether. We'll see on Tuesday if they succeed.

Tennis stars photos here: <a href=http://tennisstars.info>Tennis Stars</a>